AMD’s Power-Efficient Eight-Core Desktop Chip Due This Week

From X-bit Labs: As reported, Advanced Micro Devices plans to unveil its first power-efficient eight-core AMD FX-8300 central processing unit on December 29, 2012. The eight-core offering with 95W thermal design power will likely become a chip of choice for those, who prefer quiet systems as well as those looking forward overclocking potential. Unfortunately, the CPU will not be truly affordable.

The third eight-core AMD FX chip based on Piledriver micro-architecture will operate at 3.30GHz default frequency and will be able to dynamically overclock themselves to 4.20GHz clock-speed, which is also the maximum speed of AMD’s top-of-the-range FX-8350 product. Quite naturally, the chip will feature 8MB L2 cache (2MB per dual-core Piledriver module) and 8MB of L3 cache. The chip is drop-in compatible with AM3+ mainboard infrastructure currently widely available.

The first eight-core 95W chip with Piledriver cores will be cost ¥16980 in Japan, reports PC Watch web-site. It is likely that the U.S. price of the product will be around $199, which is higher than the price of both FX-8320 ($169) and FX-8350 ($195) models with 125W thermal design power.

It is unclear why AMD decided to release a pricey version of its eight-core chips. Performance enthusiasts know that AMD’s FX products cannot keep up with Intel Corp.’s Core i5 and Core i7 “Ivy Bridge” offerings and avoid them, very few people will likely grab the FX-8300 just because of reduced power consumption. There are mainstream consumers, for whom eight cores may be a fine selling point and exact performance may not be the priority, but who would like to buy at more or less discounted prices of around $150.

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